Jeremy Clarkson compares the new W204 C63 Black Series Coupe to the BMW M3 GTS in the newest Top Gear and picks...

Jeremy Clarkson compares the new W204 C63 Black Series Coupe to the BMW M3 GTS in the newest Top Gear and picks...

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Jeremy Clarkson compares the new W204 C63 Black Series Coupe to the BMW M3 GTS in the newest Top Gear and picks...

First of all, only one car is the true winner here. That vehicle is the C63 Black Series. Why? Because it is the only one out of the two that can be purchased in the United States. The M3 GTS might as well be a unicorn. It is also worth mentioning that Clarkson owns a Black Series. He ends up picking the Black Series here but his reasoning is sound. The M3 is a scalpel, an already fine machine further sharpened. He likens the C63 Black Series to more of a large caliber machine gun to the M3 sniper rifle and that it is a far greater improvement over the standard C63 AMG which he does not find as noteworthy as the standard M3. Sound reasoning in our view.

Full article below transcribed by BenzBoost member Sorena:

The MERCEDES C63 AMG BLACK and BMW M3 GTS have both gained big wings and a seriously hard brief. But which is better? There's only one way to find out...

What you see here is a BMW M3 GTS and a Mercedes-Benz C63 AMG Black Edition. Both are small two-door German saloons. Both have been pumped up to a notch hitherto only used by Spinal Tap. Both have been stiffened and lowered. Both make a proper racket. Both cost more than 100,000. Both go like stink. Both have lightning-fast seven-speed gearboxes and both are utterly brilliant.

You'd imagine, then, that they are both very similar. And they are, in the same way that a Chinese takeaway is exactly the as an takeaway. Both come from Asia. Both arrive on a moped. And both can cause a little discomfort the following morning. But they are completely different.

At this, I should declare an interest. I currently own a CLK Black, and it is a tremendous thing. Loud to both the eye and the ear, it's serious and completely stupid in equal measure. I love that but, behind the tremendousness, tgere are some properly annoying flaws. London and back is not possible on one tank of fuel. The sound system is woeful. Full throttle is only a theoretical possibility and the dismal ride is never worth the benefits you might experience on a tack. In fact, there are so many flaws that, in recent months, I've been thinking quite seriously, about changing it for an M3.

I therefore have a foot in both these camps. I'm as interested in the outcome of this test as I hope you are.

Let's start with the BMW. Underneath, it's not really an M3 at all. The steering is set-up is different, the suspension is different, the exhaust is different. The inside is different too. Instead of back seats, there is some scaffolding, and, instead of glass, the windows are made from Perspex. And then there's the engine. It's a 4.4-Litre V8, which mean more power, more torque and more speed. Nought to 62, BMW says, takes 4.4secs. Flat out, you'll be doing 190.

And wondering where the Mercedes went, the recipe for turning an ordinary AMG C-Class into a Black Edition is broadly similar to BMW's. Less weight. Firmer undersides. Fewer seats. And more power. But here's the thing. The standard car starts off with 480 horsepower - nearly 30 more than BMW has eked from the GTS. The Black offers up 517. Around the Ascari tack in southern Spain, a standard M3 is five seconds a lap faster than a standard AMG C63. But I suspect that if you were to race these two, it would be the other way around. The Merc is almost demented.

But do not be fooled by the figures or specifications. Yes, it may have a wider track, carbon-fibre aero winglets, coilover suspension with adjustable dampers, lightweight pistons, a diff from the world of heavy engineering, carbon0ceramic brakes and a million other bits of motorsport tinsel, but, like it's predecessor, it's not really a serious track-day rocketship.
Four laps of the TopGear track with the traction control off, and the rear tyres were not down to the canvas. They were down to the metal underneath the canvas. Four laps. That's not much more than six miles, and 600 worth of supposedly race-bred tyres had been converted into a cloud of smoke and a wall of noise.

That's where the BMW is different. Of course, you can hang it's arse out and drive like a loon, but the GTS is also able to not do this. It feels much more precise in everything it does. The way it goes, the way it turns. And the way it stops, especially. It's brakes - as is the way with so many BMW's - are simply fantastic.

Even the engine note sounds like you are playing a finely tuned instrument. Where the Mercedes barks and shouts and makes smoke, the BMW sounds like it's concentrating on the job in hand. And the blip on downchanges is so beatiful and so technical, you find yourself changing gear not because you want to go faster or to slow down but because you need that aural treat.

I haven't mentioned the steering yet. Ooh, it's good. Heavier than the standard car's, it has a precision and an accuracy I don't remember experiencing in any other car. Ever. Many think of the GTS as just a hotted-up M3, in the same mould as the old CSL. But it's so much more than that. The big daft Merc always has the power ace up its sleeve, but, in the bends, the GTS is better. It's sublime, that car.

Mesmerising. If I were to compare these two cars to pets, the BMW would be a cat. Cool. Clinical. Sharp. Canny. The Merc would be a hippo, Utterly, utterly mad, with a tail that whizzes round and round whenever it takes a shit.

So, if you are choosing between these cars on the basic of how they perform at track days, then it's the BMW everytime. But - and this is important - if you want a track-day car, why buy a modified saloon that is always going to be heavier and more cumbersome than, say, a Caterham or a BAC Mono?

And this brings me on the next problem. So that BMW salesmen can tell the 50 M3 GTS cutomres that it's very serious in the way it goes it's business, all of the road-car flimflams has been ditched. Not just the back seats, but also the door pockets, the air-conditioning, the satnav and the stereo. Sure, you can put all this back, often at no extra cost, but the I drove was pretty spartan. And with no satnav, it was pretty hard to enjoy myself, because i was always under the impression I was on the wrong road, heading for the wrong town.

This is where the Merc scores. Because it's not designed to be desperately serious, you do still get all the toys you would get in a normal car. you even get proper seatbelts, rather than the cock-serving, five-point harnesses that BMW provides.

Yes, the ride in the Mercedes is abysmal - the BMW is surprisingly compliant -but the other problems that blight my CLK (the Zippo fuel tank, the seatbelt clips in the bucket of the seat itself, and so on) have all been addressed. You really could use the Mercedes every day but, if you choose to do this, I must give you one word of warning. Do not ever full throttle unless a) it's bone dry and b) you are already doing 90mph. If you do, you will have a crash. Think of this car as a very expensive watch. It can operate when you are 3,000 feet under the surface of the sea. But if you were to go there to make sure, you'd turn into a small, very heavy walnut.

Provided you remeber the power - and especially the torque - is there, but no to be used, you can rumble about in a Black with Chris Evans on the radio and a lady telling you wear to go and the cruise control on. And you'll be way happier you would be in the GTS.

It gets worse BeeEm's tangerine dream machine, because the rear, the carbon roof and those silly seatbelts give other road users the impression that, for you, driving is a hobby. And people with hobbies, as we know are deeply suspect. Many are murderes. The Mercedes with it's flared wheelarches looks silly and flamboyant. It's a comedy car, a machine conceived, designed and built just to make you smile.

Like i said at the start of this piece, then, these are very different. The BMW is a like the McLaren MP4-12C. it's fantastically capable, but a bit clinical. It's pure engineering from a company that understands the need for balance. It even has a clutch horsepower that can be used. Rather than an extra hundred or so which cannot. It is brilliant. However, I'd still take the Merc. Mostly because it's better on a day-to-day basis, but mainly because, give the choice of what I'd like to fire this afternoon, I'd take a big, noisy .50-calibre machine gun over a clean and efficient sinper's rifle any day of the week.

There's another reason, too. The standard M3 is already so brilliant, it seems a bit silly to spend twice as much on a car that is not, by any stretch of the imagination, twice as good.
With Mercedes, things are different. The standard C63 is not especially noteworthy, which means it is worth paying extra for the Black. Which is.

Thanks for taking the time to write this up - if I could, I'd rep you!

I find it interesting that he says the standard C63 is "not especially noteworthy", considering how he was raving about the car in the comparo they did against the RS4 and M3 a few years back.

That was because he hadn't driven the M3 yet (if I remember correctly) and I feel the same way as Clarkson. When I first drove the C63 it blew me away, but when I drove one again one year later (after having spent a lot of time behind the wheel of an E92 M3, this was before we added an M3 to our garage) I found myself underwhelmed.

If only BMW could make an E9x M3 that sounds like that giant 6.2 liter V8, the Eisenmann exhaust on the C63 is a work of art. It's even better than the Eisenmann setup you can get for the M3.